Ribena (and apple) wine- 30% alcohol??

[Basepair]

hello all,

been a while since i posted on here, but as i'm having trouble believing my newly bottled ribena and apple wine is 30% odd alcohol i thought i would post and see if anyone can see where i'm going wrong!

my starting OG at 16C was 1110. my FG was 890 at 18C. this gives me 30% alcohol?!

it was made the middle of october last year and has been left until tonight (hic). from the small amount i tasted during bottling it certainly made me feel a little merry!

is it at all possible to make wine this strong? or am i doing my maths wrong?!

edit- the recipe (such as it was!)-
Boiled Tesco Blackcurrent own brand version of Ribena concentrate for 10mins. Dissolved 700g sugar in same pan then poured whole lot into DJ which already had 3.5l cold water in it. Added squeeze of citric acid, 1.25 teaspoon of yeast & pinch of yeast nutrient.

After 4 days nothing was happening- so split the DJ in 2 and topped up with my dad's vigourous fermenting apple wine from another DJ to get it going. 2 hours after doing this, both DJ's bubbling like crazy.

Start of november still bubbling merrily.

Mid november 2011 racked into clean DJ's. Gravity at this stage at 20C 1010. topped up to neck with water. left alone until tonight.

thanks in advance.

[Geezah]

your calculations are spot on ... 29.3 abv ... was your readings spot on (1110 - .890) ? as I struggle to think of a yeast that will consume that much sugar without getting killed off by the alcohol volume.

[Basepair]

i'm fairly happy the readings are correct. i think the clue/solution is perhaps the fact that nothing happened to begin with. it's only once i split the DJ in half and filled it with the vigourous homemade apple wine that anything happened.

could it be that it was too much sugar to begin with, but once it was halved the hungry apple wine was happy with the amount of sugar?

(if that makes any sense?!)

i used my dad's yeast which i believe was for wine making- can't remember name but will have a look for it in a bit.

would you say then that it is possible then to reach 30%? even if my reading were out by a few points it still make it in the mid to late 20's in alcohol??

[DeadFall]

If I get this right?

You took a 1110 OG must and then split in in half and added more fermenting wine to each half? If so, this changes the calculation. How much of your dad's wine did you add? What yeast, what OG for your dad's wine, what was the SG when you added the wine?

[Basepair]

i added half a DJ of dad's apple wine to each DJ. so in total i now have 2x DJ of half & half Ribena/ Apple.

yeast was "Formula 67 Plus- All purpose true wine yeast". it does say it has "High alcohol tolerance".

OG for dad's wine. "unknown" as my dad doesn't bother with any of that. he just chucks stuff in and hopes for the best (it usually works i have to say!).

i didn't take a SG after wine was added i realise now that might have been helpful.

[Pinto]

That would need to be some special yeast to get to 30% - even the best sugar wash moonshine yeasts struggle to push 25% ( in which case i'd reccomend you take some slants and prepare for the £££'s to roll in )

I'd wonder about your FG reading of 0.890 - thats phenominally low, i've never seen or heard of a fermented brew reaching that (although I stand to be corrected) - 0.990 is more likely ( which gives a much more accheivable 22.7% abv) - I'd calibrate your hydrometer just to be sure

Once i've done the washing up (by order, SWMBO) then im allowed to put on my Lidl Creme de Banane and Sour Cherry Liquer this afternoon and im going to be using Gervin GV4 (capable of pushing 21%) - I'll put a post up when it's done so people can follow the progress

[Basepair]

i'm happy the readings are correct. however, as you mentioned, i will check the calibration of the hydrometer to see if that's the problem.

i would struggle to believe it was 30% as well- hence my post!

[DeadFall]

i added half a DJ of dad's apple wine to each DJ. so in total i now have 2x DJ of half & half Ribena/ Apple.

yeast was "Formula 67 Plus- All purpose true wine yeast". it does say it has "High alcohol tolerance".

OG for dad's wine. "unknown" as my dad doesn't bother with any of that. he just chucks stuff in and hopes for the best (it usually works i have to say!).

i didn't take a SG after wine was added i realise now that might have been helpful.

I think that's your answer, you started with one DJ of must with an SG of 1110. You then split this into two Djs and topped up with the apple wine, thus lowering the SG (and thus the eventual alchohol content) to somewhere between 1110 and whatever the apple wine was.

[Laripu]

One tiny fact to add: the SG of alcohol is lower than that of water. So the fermented apple wine you added likely had an SG just below 1.000; for a test case, say it was 0.995, with 10% abv.

If you mixed it 50/50, you have something with 5% abv and a gravity of 57.5, i.e. 1.0575... say 1.058 to be generous.

If you had no alcohol initially, and fermented it out all the way, it would likely get to around 0.995 too. That would give you alcohol of about 8.3%. The initial alcohol accounts for your unusual final gravity, and gives you, finally 13.3%.

This analysis is devoid of measurement and replete with assumptions, so I'd give it an error band of 20%. Your wine is somewhere between 10.7% and 15.9%. Since you think it's pretty strong, let's call it between 11% and 16%. I doubt it's any stronger than 16%.

Isn't there a little glass instrument that can be used to estimate the alcohol content of wine?

[Mitchamitri1]

You can get a spectrometer thingy. Long and the short of it you won't get to 30% with yeast on its own - many people making home wines make them too sweet because they put too much sugar in and the sweetness is unfermented sugars. Max your wine will be about 15%. Another way to check this out is to get a glass of 15% wine and drink it. Then samee time tomorrow, drink a glass of your own and it it makes you fall down the stairs its probably 30%. But it wont.

[Basepair]

Your wine is somewhere between 10.7% and 15.9%. Since you think it's pretty strong, let's call it between 11% and 16%. I doubt it's any stronger than 16%.

wow! some excellent calculations there! of course it was my mistake to not take another SG...oops. nevermind- probably double figures alcohol and it tastes nice, can't complain.

[fatbloke]

Hum ? Well I've never encountered a hydrometer calibrated for wine making that goes down to 0.890 - 0.980 perhaps, and that's presuming that the yeast would reach that low without some rather advanced fermenation techniques.

I've seen some yeast packs (turbo's) that claim a max from fermentation alone, that will reach 22% ABV, but 30% would only be reachable with some type of distillation (Ice distillation would get to 30% - you don't need a still to concentrate to that sort of range).

Hence I'd suspect a mis-read of the original hydrometer, and have thought you've got something in the 16 to 18% ABV range. Any harshness or "alcohol hot" taste is feasible if it hasn't been aged, or also the possibility that the yeast produced some fusels. Both "off flavours" have been known to age/mellow, but if it's fusels, rather than "alcohol hot" it's possible that it will take a lot longer to age/mellow, if ever.